Dale Earnhardt Jr. should have a new sponsor sometime this summer, a sponsor that will be new to the sport and go beyond just this season, team owner Rick Hendrick said.

In talking about the state of sponsorship for Earnhardt and other future plans, Hendrick said he didn’t think the deal would get done soon enough to have the sponsor on the car by Daytona in July but it should be done soon.

Hendrick Motorsports is close to landing a new sponsor for Dale Earnhardt Jr. (AP Photo)

“We’ve had lots of interest,” Hendrick said. “But we’ve got something really nice that fits well. … This will be a pretty neat deal when we get to announce it.

Earnhardt, who has been voted the sport’s most popular driver each of the last 10 years, has had 13 open races this season as the Army National Guard is sponsoring 20 races and Pepsi, through Diet Mt Dew and Amp, is sponsoring five.

Hendrick has been adamant that he would not discount the price for sponsoring Earnhardt’s car.

The National Guard has a $29.96 million budget for 2013 to cover the cost of sponsoring the car as well as activating the sponsorship through various programs.

That budget was challenged in the U.S. House of Representatives last week but that challenge was defeated 289-134. Last year, the margin was just 14 votes.

“That was a big win,” Hendrick said. “We do so many things with the Guard that people don’t even know. … That’s a good victory and really a statement on how the Guard feels about the sport and what it does for their recruiting.”

Earnhardt isn’t the only Hendrick driver with recent sponsorship news. HMS recently announced that Axalta, which bought the DuPont paint division, had signed a three-year extension through 2016 for the car driven by Jeff Gordon.

The four-time Cup champion has not put a timetable on how much longer he would race.

“I’d like to see Jeff race as long as he wants to race,” Hendrick said. “He wants to race as long as he’s competitive. You always have that issue with his back. He’s worked really hard to keep his back in shape.

“That’s going to be a call that he’ll make.”

Hendrick also is working on sponsorship for Chase Elliott because he is interested in moving Elliott to a full-time Nationwide Series ride next season. Elliott, the son of former Cup champion Bill Elliott, has sponsorship from Aaron’s for his K&N Pro Series East schedule as well as select Camping World Truck Series races.

Elliott won the ARCA race at Pocono earlier this month.

“Hopefully the Nationwide Series next year,” Hendrick said about Elliott’s future. “(The Aaron’s people) like him a lot. We have a lot of interest in him. … He’s such a good young man and his name and his looks, he’s going to have a terrific career.

“He is so buttoned up. His mom and dad did such a good job with him. He’s just one of the neatest little guys. Always thanking his crew, working on the car — he’ll be good for our sport.”